


I Have To Drive

by Wifeofbath



Series: What Came After [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:18:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wifeofbath/pseuds/Wifeofbath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard has her reasons for what she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have To Drive

It starts with an argument. It always does. 

This time it's over a vacation Samantha had hoped to take to earth. "Would it be so bad to go back to London? I spent most of my childhood there.. I'd like to see the rebuild. We could stop by the Normandy. I hear they've turned it into a museum. Bet we could get a VIP tour."

Shepard looks out the window with that thousand yard stare of hers. It's not the first time they've discussed this and her answer hasn't changed. "It's too close to the anniversary. The crowds will be insane. Reporters everywhere."

Samantha had sighs, "It's never going to be the right time, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I think you know. Last year, we skipped Liara's party on Illium. The year before that you bailed at the last minute when I went to visit my parents grave on Horizon. I had to go alone."

Shepard shrugs and sips her tea. "you can go to London if you want. I'm not stopping you."

"Of course you aren't. But you aren't planning to help either. I want to go to London with you."

Shepard shrugs again, "Well, I don't want to go. I never want to go back there."

"You never want to go anywhere. It's like you saved the galaxy and just...gave up." The minute the words leave Samantha's mouth she knows they are a mistake. A big one. Shepard looks up sharply, brow furrowed. 

"Gave up. Really?"

Samantha swallowed, but the damage was done. She plunged on. "The kids have never been off world. They don't even know who you are. You barely leave the property. You don't talk to anyone. It's like you're barely alive anymore." 

Shepard didn't respond, but Samantha knew her words had struck home. She stared straight ahead, set down her coffee cup and walked away. Her back was straight as a board and if Samantha could see her face she knows her jaw would be clenched. That's when she knows it's starting again.

Shepard knows it is starting again when she wakes in the morning feeling so damn tired. It always starts like this. The exhaustion and the vague thoughts at the back of her mind like an itch she can't scratch. It's worse in the morning. It's always worse in the morning. But this morning she feels as if she has two hands, which she doesn't, and the one that she shouldn't have is on fire. 

Samantha can see it immediately. She doesn't say anything, only hums thoughtfully as Shepard groans her way out of bed into the world of the living. The kids can sense it too at breakfast. Normally she would be reassuring Ashley that they could absolutely take care of one little class rabbit for three days, and reminding Andy about baseball practice tonight.

Instead when Andy asks if she will play catch with him tonight she only grunts, and when Ashley frets about the whether Varran, the dog, will eat Boots, the rabbit Shepard tries to reassure her, but eventually snaps at her. 

"The rabbit'll be fine. Shut up about it already."

Silence falls at the tables. Ashley's eyes fill with tears. She has always been soft hearted. Shepard winces, buries her face in her hands and sighs. "Ash...I...I'm sorry. I didn't...I…" she finally trails off. Samantha watches as she slinks back to the bedroom, before comforting the children and getting them on the school bus. 

She has to get herself to work as well. Her presence would do little to help Shepard. Before she leaves she peeks into the bedroom. Her wife is curled up on the bed, staring out the window into the backyard.

"Is Ash ok?"

Samantha walks over, strokes Shepard's hair. "She'll be fine." With Shepard this vulnerable she can never quite speak her mind. Besides, Shepard is hard enough on herself. "feel better." 

Shepard sighs. 

Samantha hesitates. "Don't go this time."

Shepard doesn't respond.

Samantha leaves for work and she knows by the time that she gets back the house will be empty. Leaving is the worst part of today. She will resign herself to the usual cycle of Shepard's depression through out the day, and if she seems a little distracted, well, such is the lot of the wife of the former Commander Shepard. The first time this happened she had called Garrus in a panic.

"Shepard's a bit wild." he had said calmly, "you can't expect her to change. She loves you. She'll come back to you. Just be there when she does."

He had been right. This is not her first time around the block. She tiptoes out of the bedroom. There will always be a part of Shepard she will never tame. She has to accept that. She locks the door, gets into her car, and leaves for work. 

Varren seems to sense that something is wrong with her. He curls up on the floor and Shepard's arms drops to his head, scratching his ears. His fur is soothing beneath her hand, and he is patient enough to tolerate the contact.

It's not that Shepard hates the weather on earth, but she misses the feeling of a ship's floor beneath her feet. The rain, and the heat, and the snow seems to drive in the power the earth has here. It emphasizes her powerlessness. It's so different from the climate controlled ships. 

Her planet feels small. Her home feels insignificant. The universe is so big, and she used to have access to it. Just point her somewhere and she could go. She had her own ship , and her own crew, and no strings attached. 

She loves her wife, she loves her children, but she can feel the enormity of the universe and tininess of herself. She used to matter. 

She used to be strong. Now she struggles against arthritis to get out of bed every morning. After so many years of controlling her body, it seems to be losing it's ability to carry her. When she looks in the mirror she can feel the cybernetics. When she looks in the mirror all she can think is that she should be dead, if not for all the implants and reaper tech. She wonders if the implants are the only thing keeping her alive, and what it is to be part of what you hate.

She stumbles back to bed. Varren seems to sense her discomfort and follows her, shoving his head into her lap. She pats the bed beside her and he jumps up next to her. Shepard glances around guiltily, Samantha doesn't like animals on their bed, but she is no where to be seen, and the warmth of the dogs body is comforting.

She replays the prior nights argument in her head. She should really take Samantha to London. She should make up the trip to Horizon. They should get the kids off world more. She should visit the crew of the Normandy. The things she needs to do pile up until she is drowning in deep water. 

She is letting down Samantha and the kids. She is failing them the same way she failed EDI, the Geth, Thane, Ashley. Her failures pile up. 

Did she really make the right choice?

Would she have left Samantha and the rest of the world better off with the synthesis option. Or maybe her consciousness would be better used as an eternal guardian of the galaxy. Was the child right? Was she nothing but a tired old soldier who knew how to do nothing except destroy everything in her way?

The battle in her head rages on.

Sometime around noon she gets out of bed and heads out the door. She starts up the engine of the car and presses the button to open the passenger side door for Varran. He jumped in and sat leaning against the door, panting. Without a backward glance she starts up the truck and pulls out of the driveway. 

She drives and drives and drives. She can barely see where she's going through the haze of pain and helplessness. An hour into the drive she knows where her body is taking her and she knows it's where her body always taking her. She drives and drives and drives, stopping only occasionally to allow the dog to answer nature's call. The sun slips down, further and further and she is staring into it and it feels as if she is driving into the inferno. Finally the moon rises . It's only when it's highest in the sky that she stops and gets out of the car. 

The forest grows dark around her and she heads up the wooded path. Varren pads along behind her. He's followed her on this route since he was a puppy. The incline steepens and Shepard trips. She stops and curses her clumsiness. It continues to steepen, but she doesn't trip again. Every time she takes this path, it's a little slower. It hurts a little more. 

She drives herself harder, until she is nearing on exhaustion. It serves to enrage her. This would have been nothing-less than nothing- a decade ago. When she finally breaks even ground and the trees open up above her and she can finally see the sky. The stars gleam above her and she reaches up at them. 

A long time ago, or so it seems, they danced at her commands. Her words moved armies and sent her enemies running. She remembers the day she moved the universe, and she went where she pleased.

This is the wildness in her: she longs for the days when she held all the power and possessed freedom of the universe. She wishes for the days when she held stars in her hands. She rages at her impotence, and at her smallness. Now she reaches ever for the stars and she falls ever short.

When she is done she falls into an exhausted sleep. Varren pads over only then, and curls up beside her, keeping her warm in the chill of the ground and the woods. 

She wakes with the sun, her joints aching. She feels herself again. She misses Samantha and her kids. She no longer feels the phantom pain in her missing arm. The trip down the mountain is low and halting. She stops halfway and rests. The trip she made up the mountain in four hours takes eight on the way down, including the nap she takes in the car when she finally gets there. 

On the drive back she stops twice to eat and once at the grocery to pick up flowers, wine, a box of ready made pasta, and chicken wire. By the time she arrives back at the house Samantha's gone to work and the kids are at school. In silence she reinforces the rabbit hutch, cooks the dinner, and trims and arranges the flowers.

By the time Samantha comes home she is serving plates to Andy and Ashley, offering the occasional homework help. It's hard to be angry when she's here, and she's safe and she looks so domestic. 

"I bought us some tickets," Shepard says casually, halfway through dinner. "it's about time we went back to horizon. I thought we should stop by the Sanctuary memorial."

It's not exactly what she wanted, but Samantha knows what a peace offering looks like.

"I was thinking this would be a good time of year to get the kids off world."

These types of incidents always reminded her that even if Shepard didn't really belong to her, she would always return. So when she the kids have finally been tucked safely in, she kisses her long and hard on the mouth, and when they go to bed she ignores the bruises on her arms and legs and the blisters on her hands, and when she wakes up in the morning she closes her eyes and holds tighter to Shepard and hopes for a tomorrow with her.

**Author's Note:**

> This fiction is based on a verse from Amanda Palmer's "Have to Drive"


End file.
